Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Rambus (RMBS) - Eagle or Penguin -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dave B who wrote (24255)	7/8/1999 9:59:00 AM
From: GP Kavanaugh	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93625

A nice little analysis of our benefactor, INTC. ---------------------------------------------------------------- 09:19am EDT 8-Jul-99 Fahnestock & Company (Dan K. Scovel 212-668-2804) INTC FAHNESTOCK DAILY SEMICONDUCTOR COMMENTS FAHNESTOCK FAHNESTOCK FAHNESTOCK FAHNESTOCK FAHNESTOCK ========================= Analyst Semiconductor Associate Dan K. Scovel Morning Research Comments Michael McAllister 212-668-2804 7/8/99 212-668-8228 ========================= SOX: 491.40 -0.9%, Gains: 3/7 Majors and 36% total Industry Items: Industry Statistics: We believe the strength in DRAM products posted in May industry statistics released earlier this week resulted from timing of market price erosion and certain idiosyncrasies associated with the logistics of collecting the data. We expect DRAM products to significantly adversely impact June industry statistics scheduled for release in early-August. DRAMs account for 10% of chip industry revenues and market prices have fallen by more than 50% since May. INTC: Via to Use National as Foundry: National Semiconductor will act as a manufacturing foundry for Via Technologies core logic chip sets, including the PC133 variety that Intel has not blessed and recently withdrew its license from Via for. National has a fairly extensive patent cross-license with Intel, and we believe this deal may satisfy Via's legal requirement for technology access to offer its chip sets. Also, we know National and Via are ironing out details associated with National's sale of Cyrix to Via. While we believe this foundry deal it is not likely to offer Via a manufacturing cost advantage, the net result to Via may be less worse than the royalty payments it was sending to Intel that were rumored to be in the 20% to 25% range. In addition, we consider it very much in National's--and Cyrix's--interests to find a legal way for Via to market Cyrix microprocessors. We are now considering Via with its core logic chip sets and potential low-end microprocessor offerings to be a significantly more viable threat to Intel. AMD is getting blown-away by Intel at the low-end of the microprocessor very recently. We believe the K6 may be effectively neutralized from potential profitability, and subsequently, as a threat to Intel. However, AMD is moving up market with the K7 that will strike at the sweet spot of profitability for Intel. Now we have a potential fresh and aggressive new competitor for Intel at the low-end of the market with Via. With regards to chip sets, we believe Intel is clearly hell-bent on supporting Rambus and squashing any potentially viable competition--in spite of what seems to be fairly clear cost disadvantages associated with Rambus DRAMs. Intel gave over $1 billion to Micron and Samsung to ensure Rambus DRAM availability, has apparently suppressed information flow throughout the industry about Rambus costs and competitive alternatives through legal non-disclosure gag-order constraints, has not supported a 133MHz SDRAM option in its core logic chip set offering, and appears to have slung the full force of its market weight and legal capacities to squash Via's PC-133 chip set offering. We are not sure what is so sacrosanct about Rambus. Why doesn't Intel support--or at least allow--PC-133? The company seems to be willing to risk its market dominance on a potentially cost-inferior platform architecture when the market is valuing cost-effectiveness above all else. If any company can change a tide, Intel can. But why fight this one? Nothing herein is to be construed as a solicitation of any transaction. The information presented has been obtained from sources considered to be reliable, but it is not purported to be complete or without error. Fahnestock & Co. Inc., and/or its officers and directors, and/or members of their families, may at times have positions in any securities mentioned. Fahnestock & Co., Inc., may make a market in securities mentioned and, accordingly, will have a position that may change from time to time. First Call Corporation - all rights reserved. 617/345-2500 END OF NOTE GP

To: Dave B who wrote (24255)	7/8/1999 11:17:00 AM
From: J_W	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 93625

I'm still very interested in how Kash thinks the engineers at Intel, Sony, Nintendo, Compaq, Dell, HP, Panasonic, and Texas Instruments (to name a few of the design wins) were bamboozled. You'd think with all those successful companies that they'd have smarter engineers than that <G>. Dave, Not to pick solely on Kash, but this is the one question the bear side of the argument has NEVER been able to come up with an answer for. They like to focus on CURRENT RDRAM pricing vs SDRAM - Never mind that this is just like the pricing SDRAM had when it came out and the price will come down as all these DRAM manufacturers come on-line. They think Intel is trying to ram this down everyone's throat. - Well that is quite true. Intel has been working on this for years. They have concluded that Rambus will give them the SCALEABLE memory design that will provide them with the headroom they need for years to come. SDRAM just will not do that. Why should they waste time and energy on SDRAM which is not scaleable? Will just one of the bears please explain to me how you are going to integrate an SDRAM memory controller on the processor chip? And how many pins will it require? And DDRDRAM? Oh that only needs a couple hundred pins? They think that RDRAM will not work for the low end of the PC market and nobody will buy the high end PCs where RDRAM will make its first appearance, just like SDRAM did. Excuse me but ALL new technology starts off at the high end, not the low end. It will work its way down the line in time. No one ever expected RDRAM to appear in low end PCs this year except for the bear side. Get real. I wonder what their argument will be when a processor like Timna comes out? Meanwhile there is and will continue to be a market for the middle to high end of the PC line. To draw an analogy between cars and PCs, I haven't seen much of a dropoff in SUV sales lately. And I wouldn't exactly call SUVs a low end product. If all we buy is the low end then we would all be driving Yugos (like the free PC <gg>). They think that bandwidth is not important. Really? Think video. Think voice recognition. And they won't need more bandwidth? Sorry but bandwidth needs are only going to INCREASE in the future. Back to Dave's question. When the bear side can give me a REALISTIC answer to that question will be the day I stop supporting the Rambus solution. But I won't hold my breath. I think it will be a long time coming. Regards, Jim

To: Dave B who wrote (24255)	7/8/1999 2:26:00 PM
From: kash johal	Read Replies (6) \| Respond to of 93625

Dave B., Re:" I'm still very interested in how Kash thinks the engineers at Intel, Sony, Nintendo, Compaq, Dell, HP, Panasonic, and Texas Instruments (to name a few of the design wins) were bamboozled. You'd think with all those successful companies that they'd have smarter engineers than that <G>." I think its a great question. RDRAM clearly has advantages in high speed video apps so that certainly explains the Sony,Nintendo designs wins. And I hear that new generation video cards may use the technology as well. But the big users of DRAMs are PC's and increasingly servers and workstations for main memory apps. Now, it does appear that a whole bunch of engineers have been sold on RDRAM for desktops and workstations a few years ago. Now the big question is wether the reality meets the sales pitch. Now folks like IBM have stated that RDRAM doesn't buy anything over PC 133 memory. Tom Pabst has tested camino with 800Mhz RDRAM and seen no appreciable performance gain. When technical Rambus longs like Scumbria/Tench are asked WHAT WILL BE THE PERFORMANCE GAIN OF RAMBUS OVER PC133 in Q4 99 they start backpedalling. I agree that IF rdram offers a 5-10% user performance advantage over PC133 then it will do OK. If it offers no performance advantage customers will NOT pay for it they will use the extra $200-400 saved to buy faster CPU's, better Graphics cards, more memory, FASTER hard drives etc all of which offer better customer performance. So the BIG question is WHAT IS THE PERFORMANCE ADVANTAGE OF RDRAM ove PC100/133 in system benchmarks. Clearly if there is no advantage for current user applications then the company will crash and burn. Regards, Kash Johal.